


I am not throwing away my shot

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, Hamilton References, Musicals, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 09:01:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11032977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: They'd never pull it off. It would be amazing if they could, but he was a pragmatist.





	I am not throwing away my shot

“This isn’t Hamilton, Mary!” Jed yelled. It was not quite a shout and definitely not a scream and he felt like doing both so it was a relative win for his superego. Relative because Mary just stood there silently, her cardiganed arms crossed in front of her, her pretty dark eyes narrowed, and he heard the murmur from the kids in the wings, the few hanging out in the auditorium, like the sound the wave made after crashing on the shore. He knew he was right but sensed he’d done it all wrong, again, and that she would very shortly inform him of the fact.

“Are you done?” she asked, almost matter-of-factly. He knew her temper was up because she could, as a startlingly fine singer (a discovery he’d made slipping in early one day to find her performing “These Foolish Things” to the no-longer-empty seats), control the tone of her voice but she couldn’t help how her cheeks turned red, a hectic color it would take minutes and appeasement to fade. 

“I don’t know. Do you get it yet? Why we can’t do the sets the way you want and the lighting, why Charlotte can’t rap her entire number? Why,” he went on, building up steam again and vaguely reminding himself of his own father in a rant. His mother had never interrupted but Mary was not cut from the same cloth.

“I’m not putting up with this shit, Jed. I don’t care what Eliza did. I don’t play that way and I know right from wrong, who’s in charge and of what,” Mary said, to some scattered applause. Jed expected it to be Emma Green and her coterie of baby Riot-grrls but it was Henry Hopkins, the unexpected lead and captain of the soccer team. Evidently he was Team Phinney as well, a team Jed had once hoped to be on for the approximately twelve seconds before Mary announced her plans for the show. He’d been relieved when Eliza took the tenure-track job in Portland, their relationship withering on the vine, but he found he suddenly missed how she had acquiesced to him in the drama productions (if no where else), which had been largely because other than a junior year performance as Laurey Williams, she had neither the experience nor the interest in school musicals and had been forced to take on the director position when Val Squivers went out unexpectedly on a medical leave. Jed had gotten his way and liked it and been a benevolent dictator, he thought, but Mary didn’t seem to agree with anything he said and now none of it was true. Not getting his way, liking it, being perceived as benevolent or as an effective dictator. He tried to channel his inner Justin Trudeau and softened his tone.

“I’m sorry. It’s just, it’s not going to fly, none of it, and there’ll be consequences,” he said. He thought he sounded conciliatory and kind but based on Mary’s response, the way she lifted her chin and bit that full lower lip he did not let himself think about very much, he had failed.

“Is that a threat?”

She wasn’t adorable because she was angry, she was actually scary, impressively so, and he didn’t wonder why there was never the hint of any misbehavior in her classes. He had to figure a way out of the hole he’d dug and how to try to adapt Mary’s sophisticated, ambitious ideas to what the community, the school board, and the kids of the greater Alexandria, New York area could tolerate.

“No. It was an overture, a clumsy one,” he said, not trying to sound like anyone other than himself. Mary let her arms drop and blew a breath that ruffled her bangs, then she tucked a stray curl behind her ear, a gesture he’d come to recognize as the beginning of a real conversation.

“Take it from the top, then, okay?”

**Author's Note:**

> So, broadwaybaggins was wishing for some modern AU Phoster inspired by Josh Radnor's new TV show where Mary and Jed are director/musical director in conflict and I decided to come up with a small vignette while she works on something more impressive. Pop culture references abound and the title is from "Hamilton."


End file.
